Dead & Remembered: A Haunting Look at Mourning Rituals Past & Present

Death is a universal experience, but how we honour the dead has always been a deeply personal — and at times chilling — tradition. Across centuries and cultures, humanity has created a haunting gallery of mourning rituals. Some are beautiful. Others are bizarre. All are fascinating. Whether steeped in grief, superstition, or a fear of the unknown, these customs speak volumes about how we deal with death… and what might linger beyond.

In this article, we explore both modern and historical mourning rituals that continue to intrigue horror lovers, folklorists, and curious souls.

Victorian Death Photography: Smiles Not Required

Victorian post-mortem photograph of a deceased child with family

In Victorian England, death was more than a moment — it was a spectacle. Enter the eerie world of post-mortem photography, where families posed their deceased loved ones as though they were still alive. Bodies were propped up, eyes were painted onto closed lids, and siblings sat next to their lifeless brothers and sisters for one final portrait.

This wasn’t macabre for the time — it was a way to memorialise the dead in an era when photography was still a luxury. These photos often serve as the only visual memory a family had of the departed. Today, they strike an uncanny chord, capturing both love and loss… with a side of the uncanny valley.

Coins on the Eyes: A Toll for the Dead

The practice of placing coins on the eyes of the dead can be traced back to Ancient Greece and Rome. The belief? The soul needed to pay Charon, the mythological ferryman, to cross the River Styx into the afterlife. No coin? No crossing.

In some cultures, this evolved into symbolic gestures — covering the eyes to prevent the dead from seeing the living or coming back for revenge. Either way, this ritual blends myth, magic, and mortality, and it's one of the oldest traditions that blurs the line between ritual and superstition.

Mourning Jewelry: Hair, Teeth, and Bone

Victorian mourners didn’t just bury the dead — they wore them. Mourning jewelry, often made from the deceased’s hair, was woven into lockets, rings, and brooches. Some even included teeth or bone fragments as a keepsake.

These objects weren’t horror props — they were personal relics of grief, keeping loved ones close (perhaps too close). Today, similar macabre crafts are making a comeback in alternative fashion and horror-inspired art.

Digital Ghosts: Mourning in the Modern Age

Mourning isn’t just for the old world. In the digital age, death follows us online. Social media accounts become virtual memorials, while AI-powered bots are now attempting to replicate the speech patterns of the deceased, allowing loved ones to “chat” with those who’ve passed.

Creepy? Comforting? Both? Our relationship with digital death is still evolving, but one thing is clear — we’re building a new kind of afterlife, one coded in memory and machine.

Crying for Hire: The Art of Professional Mourners

Across cultures like Ancient Egypt, China, and parts of Africa, professional mourners — often women — were paid to weep, wail, and scream at funerals. Their job? To publicly amplify grief, sometimes to ward off evil spirits or show the family’s status.

Though it sounds theatrical (and it was), this practice was a sacred performance, not unlike a modern-day horror show of emotion.

Sky Burials and Bone Pickers: Return to the Elements

In parts of Tibet and Mongolia, death is followed by sky burials — a spiritual practice where the deceased’s body is placed atop a mountain and left for vultures. Far from grotesque, this is seen as an act of generosity, returning the body to nature and helping the soul ascend.

In Japan’s ancient Kotsuage ceremony, family members would use chopsticks to pass the bones of the cremated dead to each other — a ritual rich with symbolism and sacred care.

Mourning Colours: Not Always Black

Though black is the classic Western symbol of mourning, it's not universal. In India and China, mourners wear white to funerals, symbolising purity and rebirth. In other cultures, purple or earth tones are worn to represent the cycle of life and decay.

Fashion in mourning reflects the emotional tone of a culture — and sometimes, its supernatural fears.

The Rituals Remain

Whether it's a ghost in the machine or a body propped for a portrait, the rituals of mourning remain deeply human — and undeniably eerie. As horror fans, we recognise that death is never just an end. It’s a doorway, a mystery, a story unfinished.

And maybe, just maybe, these rituals help us keep a little of the dead with us… in more ways than one.